


"Subjects"

by Tasceri



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Descriptions of burn injuries, Edgy superpowers AU, Gen, Government conspiracies and stuff but mainly dad Vexen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Narcolepsy, Panic Attacks, Unintentionally Dad Vexen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 00:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasceri/pseuds/Tasceri
Summary: Marluxia comes face to face with the subjects of his husband's not-strictly-legal-under-international-human-rights-laws work at the Human Supergenetics Research Institute.





	1. Gardenia jasminoides

As soon as his phone started to ring, Marluxia knew what Vexen was going to say. He glanced at the familiar icon briefly before returning to the glossy, sleet-slick road. The tone looped as he considered refusing the call, but finally he gave in and flicked his finger across the screen to hit the speaker button. His phone emitted a crackle of static; then, Vexen's harried voice, "Marluxia?"  
  
As if anyone else would have picked up a call to Marluxia's phone. Marluxia kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the steering wheel, saying nothing.  
  
"Look, I'm really sorry. It's just-"  
  
"I'll call and cancel our reservation," said Marluxia. His voice felt so flat as it left his throat it could have been a computer-generated message.  
  
"It's about the fire," came Vexen's voice. Marluxia heard the grumble of a car engine, the low traffic thrum beneath it cutting through the poor connection. "It's an emergency. The children..." he trailed off.  
  
"Always the fucking children," snapped Marluxia, and hung up.  
  
The sleet was picking up again as Marluxia pulled into a lay-by. He half expected Vexen to call again - Vexen could never let _anything_ drop - but his phone only pinged with work emails. He leaned back and watched the sleet splatter against his windshield until his breathing felt natural again. Then he called the restaurant and drove home. Sequoia, chirruping, slalomed through his legs as he poured himself a generous glass of wine and watered the plants, careful not to get too close. They tended to wilt under his bad moods, and he didn't have the energy to perk them up again.  
  
"At least _you're_ reliable." He picked the fat glossy cat up and let her climb onto his shoulders. She had predated Vexen and sometimes Marluxia wondered if she would end up postdating him too. Probably not - like most people who had known Marluxia long enough, she preferred Vexen. Marluxia's phone sat accusingly on the kitchen table. Reluctantly, he called Vexen, not sure whether he was going to apologise or demand explanation. Either way, Vexen didn't answer. Marluxia defrosted a single serving of paella and flicked on the television, fighting the urge to check his phone. Grainy footage of the fire was still replaying on the news, the west wing of the building gouged out and blackened. **INVESTIGATION INTO** **FIRE AT THE HUMAN SUPERGENETICS RESEARCH INSTITUTE BEGINS** ran the tagline. **DAMAGE ESTIMATED £12 BILLION. ZERO CASUALITIES.** Marluxia changed channels to a cooking show. The conspiracy theorists didn't believe the zero casualities line. The leading theory on the message boards Marluxia idly amused himself with checking from time to time was that the fire had been started to cover evidence for illegal human experimentation. They were wrong, of course: the subjects at the Institute were too valuable to simply dispose of, and anyway, it wasn't hard to euthanise a person who didn't legally exist.  
  
Of course Vexen had signed dozens of nondisclosure agreements when he started working at the Institute. But somewhere between the proposal and the wedding he had broken down and told Marluxia everything. In his defense, he was part of the project only as a paediatrician, and Marluxia had never exactly been a moral purist. Part of him liked the secrecy, the danger, knowing truths about this big conspiracy that internet forum frequenters could only dream of.  
  
He tried calling one more time, listening to the tone repeating as he rinsed out his plate and tossed it into the dishwasher. Despite his best efforts the herbs on the windowsill were beginning to look rather worse for wear. He picked up the gaudily blooming gardenia Vexen had given him a few months ago and killed it, the leaves browning and curling as if caught in some invisible fire. Feeling guilty - for the plant, not for Vexen - he retreated to the bathroom and drew a bath, leaving his phone downstairs. Date night with himself. He should have known their anniversary was going to turn out like this.  
  
He was beginning to prune by the time he heard his phone ring. He ignored it the first time, and the second. Finally on the fourth call he gave in and dripped down the stairs, his wet fingers confusing the touch screen.  
  
"What."  
  
"Do we have any codeine in the first aid kit?"  
  
"What?" In the background Marluxia could hear tinny music. The chime of a store's bell.  
  
"Do we have any codeine. I need you to check. The kit's under the sink."  
  
"Yes, I know where it is. Where _are_ you?"  
  
"I'll explain when I get home. Just check." A beat, then- "Please." Vexen's voice sounded hoarse, breathless. Marluxia heard items dropping into a basket. The clap of a refrigerator door. "I'm on the motorway. I'll be home in twenty. Codeine? Do we have any iodine solution?"  
  
"Codeine and ibuprofen," said Marluxia. "Two packs. No iodine. We have plenty of antiseptic wipes though. What's going on? Are you injured?"  
  
"Look, I can't-" Vexen's voice became faraway for a moment, presumably speaking to someone else. Then: "I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. I'll be home soon."  
  
Marluxia drained the bath, dressed, poured out more wine. He had nearly finished the glass when he heard Vexen's car crunch on the gravel. He almost didn't go to the door to greet him. The sleet was turning to hail, wind hurling the tiny pebbles of ice against the windows.  
  
Vexen emerged from the car first. He was soaked through, shivering. Then, from the passenger seat, he pulled a child. Fifteen or so, maybe older, a shock of white hair framing his face, dwarfed by Vexen's coat. Someone in the back seat passed out another child, this one smaller, swaddled in a duvet. The first boy took the younger child in his arms, lingering while Vexen leaned in, helped out a skinny girl wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt, and finally another boy with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Vexen gestured vaguely to the house, too distracted to even acknowledge Marluxia standing speechless in the doorway. The children traipsed in, Vexen bringing up the rear. He glanced at Marluxia apologetically as he passed, but quickly he was distracted by the children again.    
  
"Take him to the kitchen. Through there. Yes. Lay him on the floor for now. Keep him drinking, that's the most important thing. Just sips. Let me get the painkillers for him."  
  
In the light of the kitchen Marluxia realised they were younger than he'd originally thought. Barely into puberty. He realised in a sudden horrible moment that he had never truly understood until now that the subjects at the Institute were _children_.  
  
"Hi," said the shorter of the boys while Vexen hunted through the first aid kit, spilling its contents across the kitchen island. He had a round, open face of ambiguous ethnicity, coffee-dark skin, puffs of brown hair weighed down with water. "I'm Sora."  
  
"Marluxia," said Marluxia. They shook hands, the gesture bizarrely formal for the surreal tableau laid out in the kitchen. The girl had found a seat at the island and was devouring a bar of chocolate from a bag full of snacks and drinks Vexen had tossed there. Despite the weather she was bone-dry, the mud smeared over her skin caked and flaking. The chocolate was dribbling over her fingers like ice cream on a hot day.  
  
"Oh, right-" Vexen finally seemed to acknowledge Marluxia's presence. "Children, this is my husband Marluxia. Marluxia, this is-" gesturing to each of the children in turn- "Sora, Kairi, Riku, and, um..." he trailed off.  
  
"Freaky Sora," supplied the boy on the floor with the injured child. "'Cus he looks like Sora, but freaky."  
  
"He must be from another program," said Vexen. He pulled a hand through his bedraggled hair. "I need to go fetch an IV and antibiotics for- for the other Sora. He's badly burned. Get these three cleaned up and fed. Kairi especially. She's - excuse the expression - close to burning out." Then he was taking the stairs two at a time, leaving a trail of wet shoeprints behind him.  
  
Sora said, "Don't be angry at him."  
  
"I'm not angry," Marluxia lied. "I'm confused." Finally his brain had processed the situation enough to ask: "What's going _on_? What are you doing here?"  
  
"We escaped in the fire," said Sora. "Kairi stopped us burning." He gestured to the girl, who had moved on to a prepackaged sandwich. Marluxia noticed rings of exhaustion under her eyes. "And then she kept us warm. Then Doctor Carlisle found us."  
  
Marluxia nearly said: "Why didn't Vexen take you back?" But then he looked at the children goggling at the kitchen and closed his mouth. There were a couple of prepacked lunches in the fridge: Marluxia tossed them onto the island for Kairi, who was beginning to regain some of her colour.  
  
Vexen appeared in the doorway, dressed in dry clothes with his hair pulled into a hasty bun. "Marluxia?"  
  
The hallway was dim, quiet. "I'm sorry I didn't give you any warning," said Vexen, touching Marluxia's arms in that guilty, affectionate way of his. "I was just… I was paranoid about saying anything on the phone. I couldn't let them get caught." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I can't-" his voice hitching- "I can't make them go back." He grabbed his keys and his spare coat, the one he disliked but not enough to actually get rid of. "I'll be- hm- ninety minutes at most. If you can, get the boy with the burns - the other Sora - cleaned up, wash the burns out with lukewarm water. I'll get iodine solution from the Institute. I don't think it's worth dressing them at this point." Then, again: "I'm sorry."  
  
Just as he was unlocking the door, Marluxia asked: "Are there any more? Children, I mean."  
  
Vexen glanced at the closed door to the kitchen. Shook his head. "A few others escaped, but… I think they're the only ones who survived. Don't tell them that though." Then he was hurrying out to his car.  
  
"Happy anniversary," muttered Marluxia under his breath. Back in the kitchen the three older children were crowded around the injured boy, who was emitting a low, eerie whine of pain. Crouching down to look at him, Marluxia could see how startlingly like Sora he was: if it wasn't for their age and the pallour of the injured boy's skin, they could have been twins. His skin was hot to the touch, his breath coming out in short uneven bursts. He smelled of sweat and urine; beneath that an unpleasantly familiar scent of burned meat.  
  
"Let's get him to the bathroom," said Marluxia. "Riku? Can you carry him upstairs?"  
  
"Riku could carry you with one hand," said Kairi. There was a note of pride in her voice. Riku said nothing: he just eased the boy out of the damp bedding, careful not to touch his back where an angry, blistering burn cut through the boy's flimsy hospital gown. Marluxia led the procession upstairs, first aid kit in hand. With five people in it the spacious bathroom was suddenly cramped. Freaky Sora in the bathtub. Marluxia carefully prised away the smock, leaving fragments of the charred fabric behind. The burns across his back and shoulder were the worst, but a closer inspection of his arms revealed nasty red gouges which looked as if they had been around for a while. Marluxi had taken a first aid course a few years ago, but this looked well beyond the realms of anything he had learned.  
  
"Did Vexen say anything about the burns?" Marluxia figured his husband had decided the child was stable enough to have left him in the hands of an accountant and three children for over an hour, but looking at the glossy welts the weight of responsibility pressed on him anyway.  
  
"He said Freaky Sora's dehydrated, that's the biggest thing. He lost a lot of… electro… something."    
  
"Electrolytes? That would explain all the bottles of Lucozade." Marluxia ran the tap warm and began washing the dirt and grime away from the boy's body. He groaned and shied away from Marluxia's touch, but when Sora came over and began to stroke his hair he relaxed as if sedated.  
  
"Sora's been keeping him calm this whole time," said Kairi, who was investigating the bottles of shampoo and conditioner with a mixture of interest and distain. "That's his thing. Otherwise when he freaks out he, like, makes monsters and stuff. He had these big wolves with him. But they disappeared when Sora calmed him down."  
  
"They weren't anything like wolves," interrupted Riku. "They were more like giant deer. They had horns."  
  
"Deer have antlers, dumbass."  
  
"That's the same thing?"  
  
Marluxia bit back the correction that sprang to his lips. He shut off the water and began to swab at the burns with an antiseptic wipe. Flakes of skin peeled away with the dirt and pus, leaving behind red-raw flesh. He worked through all the wipes he had, removing the worst of the dirt. Vexen would have to do a more thorough job with whatever supplies he brought back from the Institute later.  
  
"Alright, keep an eye on Freaky Sora for a few minutes." They really needed to come up with a better name for the injured boy before that stuck. "I'll go find towels and clothes for you three and you can take turns to shower in the guest bathroom." Where they were going to put all four children to sleep would be Vexen's problem. "Then I'll see about getting you some more food if you're still hungry."  
  
"Starving," said Kairi. She had moved on to the medicine cabinet. Marluxia swatted her hands away. Her skin was feverish.  
  
Finding clothes was a challenge: neither Marluxia nor Vexen were exactly small men, after all. In the end Marluxia settled for three sets of Vexen's pyjamas; "I'll safety-pin the trousers up if they're too loose." The children came out one by one dwarfed by the patterned flannel, rolling up the sleeves and trouser cuffs to keep themselves from tripping. They looked even younger now, small and vulnerable. Marluxia felt a lump of bile rise in his throat. These were the children Vexen had treated day in and day out. He had known them for what they were, not just an abstract concept behind words like "subject" or "patient" and… he had done it anyway.  
  
After towelling him down Riku helped Marluxia move Freaky Sora into the guest bedroom, where they laid him on his side and wrapped what parts of him weren't burned in spare bedding. Riku dribbled Lucozade into his mouth, most of which dripped out onto the pillow, while Sora held his hands and murmured soothing words. The boy seemed to flutter between sleep and wakefulness. Once or twice Marluxia could have sworn he saw the lights flicker, the shadows in the room swelling and surging in his peripheral vision. He dared spend a few minutes in the kitchen at a time to make up drinks and sandwiches for the children - and coffee for himself - but leaving them alone for too long scared him. As if there was anything he could do to help them anyway. After an eternity the gravel outside crunched under car tyres and Vexen appeared, looking shattered, hardly able to keep his hands steady as he delivered an analgesic to Freaky Sora, then worked to set up an IV feed, the bag hanging from the headboard.  
  
"I spoke to Saix," he said as he worked. "He's one of the administrators on the HSRI projects, I've probably mentioned him before. He was the one who told me where to find the children. Apparently this one is part of a program called Vanitas. They have a number of - well, not clones exactly - but subjects modified from the same cell line as Sora. From his age this Vanitas is probably one of the earliest subjects. Saix is going to try to find the records so we know what we're up against, but they won't be easy for him to access without raising suspicion."  
  
"What we're up against?"  
  
Vexen stopped his work, glanced up at Marluxia. "Considering that I didn't even _know_ about this project, I hardly doubt it's going to be anything so benign as gene therapy or drug testing. Not even Saix is involved, and I thought he had a hand in everything at the Institute."  
  
Marluxia looked at the injured boy. He couldn't have been older than eight or nine. He looked feeble, his limbs thin and gangly, the cuts and bruises and burns stark against his pale skin.  
  
"You think he could be dangerous?"  
  
"I think he could be powerful," said Vexen. "All the children are rare examples of powerful, but stable, supergenomes. That's why they're of value. Needless to say, stabilising advanced - that is to say, powerful - supergenomes is a research area of particular interest. Considering what little I know, I wouldn't be surprised if this boy represents a successful attempt at such a feat."  
  
Marluxia pulled his hands through his hair. The other three children were watching the conversation play out with little interest. He wondered if this kind of talk was normal for them.  
  
"You take them downstairs, get them settled on the sofa bed for now," Vexen said, pulling out more syringes and needles. "Did you feed them?"  
  
"Pretty much everything in the fridge, yes."  
  
"Good, good."  
  
Sora, Riku and Kairi trotted downstairs after Marluxia and waited in a huddle while he set up the sofa bed and scrounged around in the cupboard under the stairs for as much spare bedding as he could find. Sora was the first to climb in, sheepishly trying to cover a yawn with his hand.  
  
"You know where the toilet is if you need it. I'll get you a jug of water from the kitchen. You want me to leave the light on?"  
  
"No," said Riku and Kairi. "Yes," said Sora. So Marluxia turned one of the floor lamps on low.  
  
"We'll just be upstairs if you need anything."  
  
Marluxia put on the coffee machine again. Somehow he doubted either he or Vexen would get much sleep tonight. Sequoia - who always made herself scarce when visitors were around - reappeared.  
  
"You're not going to enjoy sharing the house," said Marluxia, scratching under her chin. "I'm sure you'll warm up to them soon enough though." He wondered if the children had ever seen a cat before. He'd have to make sure they knew how to pet her gently. She followed him up the stairs, but refused to go near the guest bedroom. She had always been picky about people, but the fact that she avoided Vanitas unnerved him.  
  
"Coffee."  
  
Vexen was giving the burns a more thorough clean, the tang of iodine strong in the air. "Bless you."  
  
"He's unconscious?"  
  
"No, I didn't want to risk an overdose without the proper monitoring equipment."  
  
Marluxia sat down on the other side of the bed.  
  
"When I said I wanted children some day, I didn't expect you to steal them from a research facility."  
  
Vexen almost laughed.  
  
"And certainly not four of them, hm?"  
  
Marluxia ghosted a hand over Vanitas' hair. Tight curls beginning to grow into tufts like Sora's.  
  
"So what do we do now? Go to the police?"  
  
Vexen sat back, tore open a new sterile dressing, and returned to work. He didn't meet Marluxia's eyes.  
  
"Considering that a full two-thirds of the Institute's funding comes from the government, I'm not convinced that's the best course of action." He took a distracted sip of coffee. "Given that the media are all over the fire they can hardly do a full body search in the debris. They've been looking for escapees, of course, but it's probably safe to assume they won't suspect intervention." Marluxia knew full well Vexen's clinical tone was a defence, but with a helpless child lying between them it felt cold.  
  
"Probably?"  
  
"What I mean to say is, there will inevitably be subjects left unaccounted for, and the chances are they'll be assumed to have died in the fire."  
  
"Sora said Kairi stopped them from burning," said Marluxia. "And if Riku's power is strength, he could have saved them from being buried under any building collapse." When Vexen didn't reply, he added: "It's not such a stretch to consider that some of the children could have survived."  
  
"I am aware of that, thank you." Vexen pinched the bridge of his nose. "As long as Saix can be trusted - and I don't see how he could expose me without implicating himself - there should be no way of tracing the children back to us. Only someone with much higher security clearance would be able to track their location-"  
  
"You're telling me they have trackers?"  
  
"I destroyed them. I'm not an imbecile." Vexen pushed aside the hair on the back of Vanitas' neck to reveal a small, neat slit in the skin. "My greater concern is their medical needs. Getting medicines to them without raising suspicion will be no trivial matter." Then, after a few moments: "Look, I know this is… sudden. I understand if you don't want to take on this kind of responsibility."  
  
"And what will you do with them if I say no?" Between them Vanitas shifted, whined. Almost instinctively, Marluxia began to stroke his hair. He was so young, so frail. Either the storm outside was rattling the power lines or the boy's powers were beginning to surface again: the lights were dimming and flickering eerily.  
  
"I don't know," admitted Vexen, leaning back in the chair. "Lexaeus and Zexion, perhaps..."  
  
"Both well known for their love of children."  
  
Vexen had closed his eyes. "I suspect we'll need as much help as we can get."  
  
"You really didn't think this through, did you?"  
  
"Of _course_ I didn't," snapped Vexen. He didn't speak again for several minutes; Marluxia almost wondered if he had fallen asleep. But then he said tiredly, "I couldn't just let them die out there. I've known these children their whole lives. I finally… I finally had the chance to do the right thing."  
  
The boy between them tossed and turned restlessly, making strange sounds that sounded almost like words. He tried to scratch at his burns and Vexen guided his hand away once, twice, three times. Marluxia thought: _I could walk away from this. Go back to work in the morning as if nothing had happened. Find an apartment in town. Nobody thought this relationship would work anyway._  
  
He said: "I'll pick up clothes for them tomorrow. Stock up on groceries and refill the first aid kid. What else do we need?"  
  
Vexen thought for a moment. "Sanitary towels, the most absorbant you can find. Sterilising solution. Hm. Something nice for them. Riku has a peanut allergy."  
  
"I'll see what I can find." Marluxia made a quick list on his phone, hoping inspiration would strike him at the supermarket. "How old are they?"  
  
"Sora's eleven, Kairi's twelve, Riku's thirteen. He's big for his age, so you'll probably have to size up. Vanitas… I'd say eight or nine." Vexen took a sip from his coffee, realised it was cold, made a face, set the mug back down. He pulled his hands through his hair. "Jesus."  
  
"You should get some rest," said Marluxia. "You look shattered."  
  
Vexen hummed noncommitally, but soon enough his eyelids were sinking under the weight of tiredness. Reluctantly he let Marluxia send him to bed. From the guest room Marluxia could hear him speaking to Sequoia in low, affectionate tones; then, after a few minutes, quiet. Marluxia dimmed the lights and settled in with a book. The shadows at the edges of his vision seemed to crawl around the room like the fringes of hallucination. He focused on the pages of his book: anything else came dangerously close to giving him a headache. It was going to be a long night.


	2. Chlorophytum comosum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Larxene casually insults Marluxia over coffee.)

Marluxia ran a leaf of the office's - and probably the entire financial district's - most luxurious spider plant through his fingers, watching its colour brighten under his touch. He wasn't even pretending to be working; he'd barely been paying attention to his client's taxes all morning. Giving up the lie that he'd get back to work he abandoned his desk for the balcony, wrinkling his nose at the lingering scent of smoke that even scented flowers couldn't mask. He flipped open his phone and thumbed his way down to the contact lovingly labelled "Snide Bitch". Thankfully the snide bitch herself was practically glued to her phone, so unless she was pissed at him she always picked up by the second ring.  
  
"Hey, 'Loosh."  
  
"You free for lunch?"  
  
"If you pay for it, sure. What's the occasion?"  
  
Marluxia looked out across the car park, where two seagulls were fighting over a dropped scrap of something.  
  
"I've got big news-"  
  
"-you've met an attractive older man and decided you've fallen in love."  
  
"That's not-"  
  
"-I give it a month, but sure, I can listen to you wax poetic for half an hour. Where'd you wanna meet? And I don't feel like taking the bus, so make it somewhere close to parking."  
  
"Uh, the Costa on Guardian Street at one?"  
  
"See you there." And a muffled- " _Yeah, gimme a sec_! I gotta go. Try not to get caught gazing dreamily out the window."  
  
Marluxia paced restlessly across the balcony until someone else came out to smoke, after which he retreated back inside. Even six months after quitting the smell of cigarettes made him want to smoke _so_ badly, especially around tax season. Back at his desk he found more files in his inbox and a disappointingly empty teacup.  
  
_Come on Marluxia, focus for five damn minutes._ The figures crawled by. Finally the conversation around the office started to rise as people congregated for lunch. Marluxia declined an invitation, forcing himself to finish the file he was working on before grabbing his bag and heading out. A drizzle was beginning to permeate the air. Marluxia walked along the strip of grass separating the pavement and road, feeling the leaves and roots under his soles. A few dormant daffodil bulbs waiting for spring. _You and me both_ , thought Marluxia. Unsurprisingly, he arrived before Larxene: he ducked under the cafe's awning and waited impatiently until he spotted her petite figure hurrying down the high street with her jacket hitched over her head.  
  
Marluxia and Larxene went back to their first year of secondary school, and had even dated for a year or two before Marluxia decided women weren't his thing and Larxene decided relationships weren't her thing. When he went away to university she moved with him from their sleepy - and light on employment - hometown, and while he was wasting his time with a degree in accounting she worked her way up through the ranks of a car dealership where she now made more money than he did thanks to her bloodyminded personality and ability to run circles around men too distracted by her low cut blouses to notice she knew more about cars than they did. Marluxia appreciated that kind of cunning. He didn't believe in soulmates - at least, not yet - but if he did, she would probably be his.  
  
"Afternoon."  
  
"Ugh, my hair's completely fucked."  
  
"Then fix it up in the bathroom. I'm sure I can manage to order you a panini."  
  
They settled in the back where the comfortable sofas were.  
  
"So," said Larxene, swirling her spoon around her capuccino. "This the guy you were out with last weekend? At that exhibit up in Radiant Garden?"  
  
Irritatingly, Marluxia felt his face flush. "Yeah. His name's Vexen. He's a paediatrician at the Human Supergenetics Research Institute-"  
  
"-You didn't meet him there, did you?"  
  
"No!" The word came out more forcefully than Marluxia was expecting, making Larxene laugh. He took a sip of still-too-hot coffee. "No, I haven't been there for years. We met at the Sunset Terrace."  
  
"Go on."  
  
"Well, we've been on a couple of dates so far. He's..." Marluxia searched for words. Trying to find a way to express how it felt to wake up next to the other man that wouldn't just make Larxene laugh. "Well, he's interesting and intelligent and funny. And I really like him. Stop looking at me like that."  
  
"This is just my regular face, Loosh."  
  
"Why do I tell you anything?"  
  
"Because you can't help yourself. How old is he?"  
  
Marluxia coughed. "Thirty eight." Then before she could comment on the twelve year age gap: "Sequoia warmed up to him right away."  
  
"Yeah, 'cus Sequoia likes everyone except you. So you've already taken him home? When are you going to listen to me telling you to slow down?"  
  
Marluxia made a point of ignoring her. "He's just so _earnest_. He really cares about his work at the Institute. He's all serious about climate change and recycling and government policy. He knows all kinds of weird stuff about everything." He opened his mouth to say, "I could listen to him talk for hours," but decided at the last moment that that was probably a detail Larxene didn't need to know. Instead he found his brain rapidly reciting a factoid courtesy of Vexen: "For example, did you know that the guy who invented cornflakes was really into yoghurt enemas? Like, he thought they could cure basically any disease."  
  
"How the fuck did that come up in conversation?"  
  
"I honestly have no idea."  
  
Larxene took a bite of her panini, chewed thoughtfully. "Well," she said, "I pity the poor bugger."  
  
"No, it's different this time. I think it's serious. He spent the night last night and we ended up talking until like, three in the morning. And then when I woke up he was already making coffee. Sequoia was standing on his shoulders. That really means something."  
  
"That means jack shit, Marluxia. You act like that cat's a fucking psychic."  
  
"I don't. She's just a good judge of character, that's all I'm saying."  
  
"Yeah, it's really astonishing that she tolerates you at all." Larxene drained the last of her coffee, checked her watch. "Oh, whatever. What are they gonna do, fire me?" She leaned over and took Marluxia's hands in hers. "Listen, Marluxia. I'm telling you this because I love you. In spite of everything. It sounds like he's a really good guy. So he deserves to know what he's getting into."  
  
"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" asked Marluxia, knowing full well what Larxene meant.  
  
"Loosh. I know you fall in love easily. And you fall out of love easily too. I know you don't want to break this guy's heart. So for his sake don't lead him on into thinking you're something you're not."  
  
Feeling like a petulant child, Marluxia huffed: "This time it's different."  
  
"Yeah, that's what you said with-"  
  
"-Shut up."  
  
Back in the office Marluxia found himself surreptitiously reading back over Vexen's texts, resisting the urge to send him a message. The last thing he wanted was to be the kind of guy who left strings of texts on his date's phone. What would he say anyway? _Want to come over again tonight?_ Or what he was really thinking: _And don't bring pyjamas, because after you wear mine they smell like you_.  
  
Marluxia usually prided himself on his focus and work ethic, but today his work had never been less unappealing. He picked his spider plant up and carried it out to the balcony with the others: it was coming suspiciously close to flowering.


	3. Acer pseudoplatanus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Marluxia realises that maybe his husband isn't a good person.)

Under the blankets, despite their tiredness, the children were having a Meeting. Their torch had run out of battery last night but Kairi had spotted a packet of them in the kitchen while the boys were too busy goggling at the decor. The light shone on their sleepy faces, and between them, Riku's now damp, muddy diary, open on a fresh page. First on the agenda: "What do we do now?"  
  
Sora was yawning, barely able to stay awake. He lay up against Riku's side, his eyes half-lidded, letting Riku stroke his hair. But there was a tension in his body, a tension that hadn't subsided for days. "Can we trust them?"  
  
"No," said Riku. "We should move on as soon as we can."  
  
"And go where?" snapped Kairi. Being tired made her irritable. "We nearly died out there."  
  
"We just weren't prepared enough," Riku snapped back. "We can rest here, take what we need, and move on."  
  
"We shouldn't of left in the fire," said Sora. "We should of waited until we were ready."  
  
"We would have been fine if it was just the three of us."  
  
"No we wouldn't." Kairi pointed to the back of her neck, where the cut the doctor had made stung under the plaster. "If Doctor Carlisle hadn't found us, someone else would have. Someone meaner."  
  
"We could take them. We're powerful."  
  
"Doesn't matter how powerful you are if you get shot."  
  
"They wouldn't shoot us," Sora murmured. Kairi looked at him, glanced at Riku, shifted without agreeing or disagreeing.  
  
"We need to rest," she said finally. "Sora basically hasn't slept in two days and I'm ex-hau-sted." She drew the last word out like it could encapsulate the bone-deep tiredness she felt all through her body. She knew the limit of her powers and she knew she was close to it. Looking at Riku she knew he felt the same way, even if he was too stubborn to admit it.  
  
"Okay," he conceded finally. "We'll rest then. But stay on your guard." Stupid boy always acting like he was the leader. They pulled their heads out from under the blankets and settled in for the night. As Sora fell asleep Kairi felt a wave of anxious nausea wash over her and she started to cry. Riku comforted her awkwardly, pretending his muscles weren't still wound tight and his hands weren't still shaking.  
  
"This was stupid," she whispered in the under covers darkness. "We didn't know anything about the outside world. And we still don't."  
  
"We can't go back now," said Riku. Kairi worried at a crack in her lip. She was scared to consider that maybe he was right.  
  
"What about Freaky Sora?" she asked instead, determined not to think about home. "D'you think he'll make it? Doctor Carlisle didn't seem sure. Those burns were pretty bad."  
  
Riku glanced at her with distainful eyes. "I was fine that time you burned _me_." And considering how often he showed her the scars on his chest from it Kairi was pretty sure he wouldn't ever let her forget that.  
  
"Yeah, but you got treated right away for that."  
  
"Why do you care so much?" Riku huffed. "He's not one of us."  
  
"He's Sora's clone, kind of," said Kairi. "Doesn't that make him kind of us?" Riku didn't say anything for a long time. Between them Sora whined in his sleep. Kairi wondered if Riku was thinking the same thing she was: if they had made clones of Sora, then somewhere back in the Institute there could be clones of _them_.  
  


* * *

  
"Marluxia."  
  
Marluxia surfaced uncomfortably from dreams of crawling shapes and glowing, uncanny eyes. For a moment the guest bedroom seemed unfamiliar, threatening: but then the dimly lit shapes resolved into a wardrobe, a bed, Vexen in the doorway with concern on his face.  
  
"What's the time?"  
  
"Four fifteen. I couldn't sleep."  
  
Marluxia rubbed his eyes, pulled a hand through his hair. "I think the kid's giving me nightmares."  
  
"Go get some rest. I'll take care of him." Despite the weight under his eyes Vexen was already checking Vanitas' pulse. "His heart rate is up. Did he urinate at all?"  
  
"A little last time I checked." Marluxia gestured to a crumpled towel in the laundry basket. "Still dark."  
  
"I can't believe I forgot to get a catheter," Vexen muttered under his breath, preparing another syringe. "No monitors, no medical records, no lab tests. No wonder the doctors of antiquity were so ineffective. I feel like I'm flying blind."  
  
"It's thanks to you he's alive at all."  
  
Vexen pursed his lips. "For now." Marluxia watched the boy as he woke from sleep at Vexen's touch, squirming and letting out a whimper as Vexen pressed in the needle.  
  
"He's stable, isn't he? He made it through the night."  
  
"I'm worried about that infection. Why don't you check on the other children then get some sleep."  
  
Marluxia was grateful to leave. Being close to Vanitas was giving him a headache, and no matter how many times he had watched Vexen use them, needles still put him on edge. Downstairs everything was dark and still: Sequoia curled up in her hammock next to the radiator, the rain a gentle patter against the windows. The three kids were sleeping in a tangle on the sofabed. Riku closest to the door, curled protectively around the other two; Kairi on the other side of Sora with her legs sticking out from under the blankets. Marluxia watched them for a few minutes. Jesus Christ. They were so young.  
  
He retreated to the comfort of the bedroom and lay staring at the ridge in the ceiling where the plaster was beginning to crack under a weight-bearing beam, the crack Vexen kept promising to paint over. Vexen was good at making promises.  
  
Marluxia rolled onto his side. To be fair: Vexen was good at keeping promises when it mattered. Which was what scared Marluxia.  
  
In the next room he could hear Vexen murmuring gentle words, punctuated by occasional distressed cries from Vanitas. Sounding a lot younger than his age. Vexen had been conflicted about whether to adopt a baby or an older child. He hadn't taken Marluxia's promises to change nappies and wake at any hour for feeding seriously. But when it came to making the applications he had got a little teary eyed and ended up checking the boxes for basically every age. Not that it mattered: two years later none of the agencies they applied for had found a "suitable match" for adoption yet. Vexen absolutely furious, of course.  
  
Marluxia gave up trying to sleep and grabbed his phone, the screen a bright glare in the darkness. A text from Larxene: _Enjoy your date with V?_  
  
He considered several replies, but finally he settled for: _Big news. Can you come over before work tomorrow?_ He wasn't sure if "my husband just stole four children from a national research institute" had too much gravitas to send in a text or if Vexen's paranoia was getting to him. He thumbed through Twitter, restless.  
  
Larxene, predictably awake: _What happened? Did V break up w/ you? ARE YOU GETTING A DIVORCE!!_  
  
_No and also no. But definitely something I need to tell you in person._  
  
_Got a meeting at 11 but I can play hookie til then._  
  
_Come round at 8:30. I'll make waffles._  
  
_Sold. This better be good news. Now get some fucking sleep._  
  
Marluxia didn't reply. Vexen would be angry at him for telling Larxene, but what was he supposed to do? Lie to his best friend? Take care of four extremely superpowered children, one of whom was seriously injured, by himself?  
  
_Just focus on tomorrow_ , he thought to himself like a mantra. _What happens happens. One day at a time._  
  


* * *

 

  
"Okay, so what's this big news?" Larxene was through the door almost as soon as Marluxia unhooked the chain, shaking hailstones out of the fur lining of her hood and stamping sludge from her shoes. Marluxia eased the door closed behind her, peering out at the torrential weather outside and trying not to think about what would have happened if Vexen hadn't found the kids last night.  
  
"Come through to the kitchen. And keep your voice down."  
  
"You're being seriously weird even for you, you know that?" But at least Larxene had the sense to speak in a hushed voice as Marluxia brought her to the kitchen and poured her coffee from the jug. "Okay, now tell me."  
  
 "You can't tell anyone else about this. This is NDA-level secrecy. Higher."  
  
"Oh, Vexen's going to be pissed you told me. Serves him right for trusting _you_."  
  
Marluxia took a deep breath. "Last night he brought home four children who escaped in the fire."  
  
A pause. Sequoia emerged from somewhere, approaching cautiously as if she could feel the tension in the room. Signing quotation marks, Larxene asked, "The 'zero fatalities' fire?"  
  
"No, the other fire that happened at the Institute. Of course that's the one I'm talking about. One of the kids controls temperature. That's the only reason they survived out there. Vexen managed to get their location from someone at the Institute and he rescued them and now they're asleep in the living room."  
  
"Well," said Larxene finally, "Saves trying to find an adoption agency willing give a child to two gay guys, I guess."  
  
Marluxia ran his hands through his hair. "Jesus Christ." He allowed Sequoia to jump onto his lap, scratching absentmindedly behind her ears. "Vexen's gone back to work, of course. Leaving me to take care of them. They're all safety-pinned up in his pyjamas, one of them has a serious burn injury and Vexen's written out four damn pages of instructions in his inscrutible handwriting on keeping him hydrated and dosed up with oxycodone. Jesus Christ, Larxene. They're so young."  
  
"How young are we talking?" asked Larxene. She had leaned forward, back straight, unusually serious.  
  
"Oldest is thirteen. The injured one, we don't know. He's not one of Vexen's. Maybe seven?"  
  
Larxene flicked open her phone case and in moments was listening to the dialling tone. Hearing a voice on the line, she said, "I'm not gonna make it in today. Cancel my meeting with Axel… tell him anything you want, I don't give a shit… yeah, push that one back… I thought I was paying you _not_ to make this my problem." She tapped her foot on the floor as she listened to her long-suffering secretary speak. Then, evidently satisfied: "Sure. Uh huh. See you tomorrow. Bye-e-e!" She turned to Marluxia, tossing her phone onto the counter where it came dangerously close to skidding off the opposite edge. "Okay. I distinctly remember you promising waffles."  
  
"I should introduce you to the children," said Marluxia. He knocked gently on the door to the living room before easing it open. Riku and Kairi were still fast asleep. Sora was sitting by the window, wrapped in a blanket. It was hard to tell in the gloom, but it looked like he'd been crying. "Hey Sora. You want some breakfast? I've brought a friend over for you guys to meet."  
  
The first thing Sora did was look at the other two. Marluxia thought he'd wake them, but after a moment he wiped his face on the blanket and plodded over. He seemed tired, but there was a jittery, on-edge character to the way he moved as if he'd drunk too much coffee in too short a time. Seeing Larxene he lingered uncertainly in the darkness of the living room, but Marluxia was able to coax him out.  
  
"Sora, this is Larxene. Larxene, Sora."  
  
"Nice to meet you, kid."  
  
"Hi, I'm Sora."  
  
They shook hands. Marluxia wondered where Sora had learned that. He wondered how much the children had learned of anything. He wondered at all the questions it had never occurred to him to ask Vexen about his patients. He gestured for Sora to sit at the counter, but the boy had stilled suddenly, staring at a spot on the floor. Marluxia glanced down at his feet and saw his cat, watching Sora with as much curiosity and hesitation as Sora was watching her.  
  
"This is our cat Sequoia," he said, scooping her up into his arms. "Do you want to stroke her? Gently, like this." As he guided Sora's hand over Sequoia's fur the child let out a gasp.  
  
"She's so _soft_."  
  
"Sit down, she'll sit in your lap. You can stroke her back and her head. But don't touch her belly. Or her tail. She doesn't like that."  
  
"Selphie has a toy cat but I've never met a real one before," said Sora, clearly mesmerised by Sequoia as she allowed Marluxia to pour her into his lap. He laughed as she circled between his legs, butting his hand with her forehead- and suddenly he collapsed, Sequoia leaping away with a yelp. Marluxia rushed to catch him before his head hit the tiled floor. For a few moments he was still, and then he came too, shaking his body as if remembering how to move his limbs. A sense of disorientation swept over Marluxia for a brief moment, then an alien kind of distress as if someone had suddenly reached inside him and twisted his emotions into panic.  
  
_With children, the most important thing is how they feel_ , Vexen had told Marluxia once. _If you're nervous or confused or panicking they pick up on it, even if they don't realise. They trust adults to protect them, and if the adults around them are afraid they will be too_.  
  
Forcing himself to keep his voice calm, Marluxia asked, "Are you okay?" He helped Sora lean against a cabinet. The wave of feeling was beginning to subside. Instead of asking what happened, he decided instead to follow up with: "Are you hurt?"  
  
"I'm okay," said Sora, sounding surprisingly chipper. "It happens sometimes. I have narcolepsy."  
  
"That's a big word for a little kid," said Larxene as she leaned over to draw a cup of water from the tap. She glanced at Marluxia, who could only shrug. It would have been helpful for Vexen to have mentioned that before he left for work.  
  
Sora shrugged. He was getting to his feet. "It means sometimes my body falls asleep when my head doesn't or my head falls asleep when my body doesn't."  
  
"You sleepwalk?"  
  
"Not so much any more."  
  
"What about the others?" asked Marluxia as he pulled the bowl of waffle batter out of the fridge (Vexen having already used up a substantial amount of it before leaving). "Do they have it too?" He wondered if the narcolepsy was related to Sora's powers, if strong emotions triggered fainting.  
  
"No, Kairi gets heatstroke sometimes though."  
  
"And Riku?"  
  
"He's allergic to peanuts. What are you making?"  
  
"Waffles. You like waffles?"  
  
"I like potato waffles."  
  
"Oh kid," said Larxene. "You're in for a treat."  
  
They sat in silence while Marluxia watched the waffle iron carefully, listening to it sizzle and hiss. Once or twice Sora's eyes slipped closed and his head began to droop forward, but when Marluxia asked if he wanted to go back to bed he insisted he was awake. Now that the emergency of the night before had passed, Marluxia had no idea what to say. Ask about the children's lives as test subjects - lives they had been willing to risk everything to escape?  
  
Eventually he settled for, "I'll be going out to pick some things up for you guys today. Do you have any toys or games you'd like me to get?"  
  
Sora considered this. "My favourite game is Hungry Hippos. Riku likes Jenga because he's better than everyone else at it. Me and Kairi play Legos a lot. Riku pretends like he's too cool for Legos."  
  
"Nobody is too cool for Legos," said Larxene, earning an approving nod from Sora. "Why don't you ask Vexen's mums if they still have some toys and games in their garage? I'm pretty sure they're physically incapable of throwing anything away."  
  
"And your plan for not telling them about the children is...?"  
  
"Yeah, okay." Larxene gulped down the last few mouthfuls of her coffee. "Do they even know about the whole secret research children thing?"  
  
"Of course not. You've met them. Do you think they'd let Vexen be involved with any of this if they knew?" Marluxia flipped out the first waffle and passed the plate to Sora. "Here you go. There's jam, peanut butter, syrup or nutella to go on your waffle."  
  
"Yes please," said Sora, so Larxene generously slathered one topping on after another, creating a sticky mess that Marluxia was pretty sure Vexen wouldn't approve of feeding to a nine year old child. But Sora had just spent his first two days outside wandering around a freezing moorland, and as far as Marluxia was concerned the important thing was that _he_ approved of the waffle.  
  
"Keep an eye on on the waffles while I go check on Vanitas."  
  
"Child number four?"  
  
"He's very sick," offered Sora, his mouth already sticky with peanutbutter-jam-nutella-syrup. "He got hurt in the fire."  
  
The guest bedroom was dark and stuffy, the spare space heater on full blast next to the bed. Marluxia checked Vexen's notes - two hours until a dressing change, check for hydration every half hour, this number of miligrams maximum dose of oxycodone, this amount of ketamine to manage severe pain. In large letters and underlined twice Vexen had written: _TO ASSESS PAIN: FLACC_. Marluxia screwed up his face and wished he was better at remembering acronyms.  
  
The injured boy was asleep, still bar the occasional twitch of his limbs. It was strange seeing him linked up to the IV without the reassuring peep and hum of hospital machines around him. He drew his legs up but didn't wake when Marluxia took his pulse and temperature, or when he levered the soiled towel out from underneath him, wiping away the watery diarrhoea from between his legs. Why had he ever convinced Vexen that white linens were a good idea? A fresh towel went down. Marluxia washed his hands. He wondered if waking alone in an unfamilar room would frighten the boy. Probably waking in an unfamiliar room with an unfamiliar person wouldn't scare him any less.  
  
"You're safe now," he promised stupidly, running his hand over Vanitas' hair. The abrupt contours where squares had been shaved away. The boy's steady pulse at his temples, the pale skin showing every discolouration. Vanitas whined and the room shuddered for a moment before its geometry returned to straight lines and sharp angles. _God_ , thought Marluxia, swallowing down nausea, _Vexen couldn't have rescued children with less inconvenient powers, could he?_  
  
But then he remembered his own boyhood, before his powers had dulled with age, when his tantrums would kill even the hardiest of his mother's plants. The worst thing he ever did was kill the sycamore in the back garden which his mother had bought in memory of his grandfather, the one he had never met. He didn't even remember what he'd been so angry about.  
  
"Part of it is control," Vexen had said one summer evening under a different sycamore while Marluxia braided daisies and buttercups into his hair. "We know that powers are closely linked to emotional state. There's also the case of instinct, which is usually stronger in babies and children." Marluxia, if he remembered the scene correctly, had been humming in agreement at appropriate intervals for some time at this point. "But there's a well documented epigenetic collapse - a 'switching-off' of the genes responsible for powers, if you will. In most cases within five or six years, rarely during puberty. If we can control that, then we could in theory eliminate supergenome-related child mortality."  
  
Marluxia recalled with an awful clarity what he had said next, an idle throwaway joke that - he didn't remember now - perhaps Vexen had laughed along with or awkwardly shaken off: "Or superpowered adults."  
  
That was before they had got engaged, but even after he knew about the children Marluxia never really pushed Vexen on the motivations for such a flagrant abuse of the human rights convention. He looked at Vanitas and thought, Y _ou're an accountant. You know these things always come down to money. Who profits from doing this to a person?_  
  
He stumbled downstairs. He needed coffee. And waffles. And not to have to look any of this - literally - in the face.


	4. Vitis vinifera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Vexen takes Marluxia to a conference.)

"You are absolutely shameless," said Marluxia from the bed.  
  
"It's not shamelessness. I've paid for all of this," said Vexen as he dropped the satchets of tea, coffee and hot chocolate into his bag.  
  
"You didn't pay for anything, the Institute is covering all your costs. Neither of us even drink hot chocolate."  
  
"You never know when we might have a guest who does." Vexen had already cleared out the bathroom of its miniature soaps and shampoo bottles. The fact that they were both very particular about the brands of shampoo they used was a detail apparently lost on him.  
  
Marluxia kicked off his shoes and stretched out his legs while he watched Vexen - having sufficiently looted the hotel room - unpack their bags with his signature fastidiousness. Equal parts endearing and irritating.  
  
"So when does the wine reception start again? I might take a shower before we head down."    
  
"Oh, not until seven. We've got plenty of time."  
  
Marluxia bit back the urge to double check - quadruple check, really - that Vexen was sure he was okay with introducing him to his colleagues. Marluxia wasn't out at work, and doubted he would ever want to be. The fact that Vexen wanted to have another man on his arm while meeting all the big names in his field was… not a level of comfort in sexuality or career that Marluxia could wrap his head around.  
  
"I think I'll run over my talk one last time," said Vexen as he hung up his suit jacket. "Look at this, the coat hangers are attached to the rail. Who would steal coat hangers?"  
  
"…You?"  
  
"Alright, alright."  
  
"I'm sure you'll do fine." Marluxia picked up a leaflet on the bedside table listing all the services available at the spa. "Do you think we can charge massages to expenses?"  
  
Vexen laughed. "If you're a keynote speaker, sure." He sat down on the other side of the bed, reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind Marluxia's ear. Marluxia, who specifically had a hairstyle that covered his ears, enjoyed the casual gesture of affection too much to flick it back. "Right. Laptop. Memory stick. Do you think I should make my title more snappy?"  
  
"I think you should keep the title that's printed in the schedule."  
  
Vexen's talk had been titled various things over the last few months, the current iteration being: _Complications and considerations in the care of supergenetic patients: a paediatrician's perspective_. Vexen was quite pleased with the alliteration: Marluxia wasn't convinced. He watched Vexen flick over his slides for a few minutes, his lips moving near silently as he practiced his lines. Then he grabbed a towel and headed to the shower.  
  
When Vexen had suggested Marluxia coming along as a partner to this conference, Marluxia had been so suprised and flattered that he'd immediately agreed. He had been touched that Vexen wanted to be seen with him. That the relationship mattered so much to him. But now - not that he'd admit it to Vexen, of course - there was a pit of anxiety in his stomach at the thought of meeting all the doctors, geneticists, pharmacologists and statisticians that Vexen worked with from day to day. It wasn't just the gay thing. Vexen had been pretty dismissive of Marluxia's concerns in that regard anyway: "Transitioning didn't sink my career, do you really think being gay is going to matter?". Maybe it was the age difference. Maybe it was how much he hated to feel intellectually out of his depth. He didn't want people to think that he was just some young pretty thing Vexen was only interested in for his looks.  
  
The water pressure in the shower was good, although the seal on the cubicle left something to be desired. Marluxia tipped his head back and breathed in the hot, humid air. In two weeks he would have been dating Vexen for a year: not his longest relationship, but not far off either. In idle moments at work he would catch himself imagining ways to propose, imagining ways Vexen might propose. He had felt this way about other men, but not this much, not this deeply. He knew, fiercely, that he wanted to stay wrapped up in Vexen's love for the rest of his life.  
  
Maybe that was what was so frightening about this. The _commitment_. Daydreams about marriage were just that: romantic fantasies. The reality of marriage was things like inviting his parents knowing they wouldn't come, tucking his ring in his breast pocket at work like a coward, making a _public spectacle_. Raising the price of failure. It wasn't that Marluxia didn't want to get married or have children, he just… didn't want everyone and their mother to know about it.  
  
He shut off the shower and towelled himself down. Vexen watched his body appreciatively as he deliberated which clothes to wear, taking just a few more minutes than was strictly necessary to dress, leaving his shirt hanging open while he dried off his hair.  
  
"Do you think I should change the colours on this graph? It doesn't really match the rest of the slides."  
  
"Make the axis labels bigger. I can't read them from over here."  
  
"Oh, it's just a comorbitity index."  
  
"See, that's something I'd know if you made the text bigger."  
  
"Hah! Alright, alright."  
  
The view from their window wasn't exactly the most glamorous, looking over the hotel's car park and beyond it another tall building blocking off any rolling hills that might have lay beyond. There were a fair few flowerbeds in the car park, but they weren't in the best of health. They could really use someone with a magic touch like Marluxia's to give them a bit of extra life. Marluxia watched the cars come and go until Vexen snapped his laptop shut with a definitive sigh.  
  
"Perfected your slides?"  
  
"There's only so much messing around I can do before it just gets stupid." Vexen pulled his hands through his hair, reached for his brush. "I'm just working myself up at this point."  
  
"Don't tell me you're nervous."  
  
Vexen barked a laugh. "Of course I'm nervous. I'm not even presenting original research."  
  
"That means nobody can criticise you." Marluxia took over brushing Vexen's hair, working out the knots and kinks that had developed during the day. "You want me to braid this for you?"  
  
"Hm. I'll leave it down for tonight. Tomorrow, though."  
  
Marluxia kept threading his fingers through Vexen's hair longer than was strictly necessary. It was so good to date someone who took care of his hair. Even if he stubbonly refused to do anything about the grey hairs that Marluxia was already beginning to find. Marluxia himself was going to keep dying his hair until he died. With the exception of Larxene, nobody who knew him now had even seen his natural hair colour, and he prefered to keep it that way.  
  
Vexen glanced at his watch. "Time to scope out the bar?"  
  
"Let me find a tie."  
  
"You can leave your shirt open."    
  
"You really want people to think you hired me for the weekend?"  
  
Vexen rolled his eyes but Marluxia didn't miss the smirk on his lips. He swallowed down the anxiety threatening to crawl up his throat. Vexen wouldn't risk bringing him here if he thought Marluxia was going to embarrass him. It was just a room full of nerds. Marluxia had faced far, far worse. It was going to be fine.


	5. Coffea arabica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Marluxia doesn't know anything about relating to children.)

Taking advantage of a patient no-show - not that that made his schedule any more on time, as usual - Vexen hurried down the corridor to the cramped staff kitchen, coffee mug in hand, glancing at the offices as he went in case any other doctors were between patients and in need of recaffeination. Despite that fact that he'd gone several hours without a drink, he was glad to be past the morning's meetings and burning through appointments. It was easier to distract himself from remembering the children at home.  
  
He knew he was not acting his usual self: several colleagues had already commended on it. He had prepared a line about Sequoia being sick, which he hoped he delivered with enough sincere concern to throw anyone off the scent. Why had Saix chosen probably the worst liar in the entire department to secretly rescue four illegal test subjects?  
  
As he waited impatiently for the kettle to boil his thoughts snapped back to the children. He wondered if Marluxia was managing to take care of Vanitas. If the antibiotics didn't cut it - if one of those burns was infected - he could be dead from sepsis in hours. As for the other children, Kairi had overexerted herself so much she was risking epigenetic collapse, and that needed intensive care, specialist medications, constant monitoring. Sora had a bad habit of trying to modulate the emotions of those around him, which would need to be addressed. Especially with regard to Vanitas. And Riku was going to be trouble. He had always been distrustful of authority, which, Vexen reasoned, in his case was probably not so unreasonable. "Rules" was not a concept Riku seemed to think applied to him, and he wasn't afraid of using brute force to prove it. Even Vexen had butted heads with him a few times, and from now on he wouldn't have the clout of the HRSI with its security staff, padded rooms and tranquilisers to back him up.  
  
"Vexen."  
  
Vexen nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of his name, but it was just Saix at the door.  
  
"You startled me. Coffee?"  
  
"I've left the paper copies of your new patients on your desk," said Saix, placing his cup next to the kettle. Dutifully Vexen spooned instant coffee into it. "The electronic versions should match, but you know how it goes with those receptionists."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
A thought appeared in Vexen's mind, uncomfortably alien: _I haven't been able to get full medical transcripts for any of the children yet, but the basic information for Sora, Riku and Kairi is in the folder._  
  
Vexen said: "I'll take a look at them tonight. I have enough to do at work already." He thought: _And what about Vanitas?_ The kettle came to a boil. Vexen made the coffee while Saix hummed in sympathy and said in his mind: _I pulled some old reports out for you, as well as his most recent medication regime. That should give you enough to work with for now._  
  
"Milk?"  
  
_Stealing those painkillers and antibiotics was enough of a risk. How am I supposed to get their medications?_  
  
"Just a splash, thank you." Saix wasted a moment or two stirring his coffee, wiping down someone else's cup ring from the counter. "Honestly." As he spoke: _For the basic suppressants, just write a prescription for your husband. I'll sort something out for the rest._  
  
Vexen wanted to kick himself. Why hadn't he thought of that? A snide comment popped into his mind: _You don't strike me as the kind of man with much experience in breaking rules._  
  
"And you are?" Vexen didn't realise he'd spoken out loud until Saix glanced at him cooly on his way out of the door. "Sorry. Thinking out loud. Busy day."  
  
_Stay on your guard._ And Saix was gone. Vexen returned to his office, finding a thick manilla folder in his inbox tray. He glanced at the first page: a medical record for a patient transferring from another hospital. Underneath, he spotted the words CONFIDENTIAL stamped on a document titled: _VANITAS CASE REPORT: SUBJECT 5_. He snapped the folder shut and dropped it into his suitcase. His heart was pounding.  
  
He checked his schedule, took a sip of coffee, and headed out to fetch his next patient. He just needed to get through the rest of the day. And the next day, and the next...  
  


* * *

  
The sleet had picked back up by the time Marluxia rolled his car into the drive, the sky dark with clouds promising more miserable weather. Larxene helped him haul bags of clothes, toys and groceries into the house.  
  
"Did they behave themselves?"  
  
"They're still mostly sleeping. Kairi's not looking great. If I catch the flu off your secret kids I'm gonna be pissed."  
  
"And Vanitas?"  
  
Larxene shrugged. "The same. I've had bad trips exactly like that hallucination thing he does. I went in earlier and the walls were like, dripping with black slime. Do you think it works on animals too? Sequoia won't go near the guest room."  
  
Only Kairi was awake, making her way through yet another sandwich. She watched Marluxia suspiciously as he loaded bags onto the kitchen counter.  
  
"I've got some clothes for you all." He pushed a large bag towards Kairi. "I hope you like pink, because apparently that's the only colour girl's clothes come in. Wipe your hands first."  
  
Larxene peered into another bag, finding a collection of books and games. "You get all this from charity shops?"  
  
"Mostly, yeah. Primark for the rest. And as luck would have it-" he opened a rather worse-for-wear cardboard box. "One of them even had this whole box of Lego."  
  
Kairi immediately perked up, losing any interest in the clothes. "Lego?" She leaned over the counter to investigate, marvelling at the bounty of bricks and figurines inside.  
  
"Why don't you finish your sandwich and get dressed, then you can wake Sora and Riku up and play with the Lego."  
  
As if hearing mention of his name Sora materialised at the door, trailing a blanket. "Hey Kairi. What's all this stuff?"  
  
"Check it out, Marluxia got us Legos. And…oh, some books I guess-"  
  
"-Riku will like those. Hey, are these clothes for us?"  
  
"Well, they're certainly not going to fit me."  
  
"Bagsy this tee shirt. It's got pirates on it, Kairi, look-"  
  
"-You like pirates too much."  
  
"Pirates are _cool._ "  
  
"Is Riku _still_ asleep? He did the least out of all of us."  
  
"He carried Freaky Me the entire time. And everything else. And _you_."  
  
They talked rapidly, interrupting each other like they'd spent their entire lives together. Marluxia felt another pang of guilt. All those people idly speculating on the internet, had they even sat down and thought about what it would be _like_ to grow up trapped in a single building, the same corridors and the same people and the same routine every day with no end in sight?    
  
And the experiments. "Well, it's mostly genetic profiling and drug trials," Vexen had said. Almost dismissively. It had placated Marluxia. He'd taken part in a couple of trials as a kid while his powers were still strong. And he'd gone to school, made friends, played in the woods and ruined all his clothes, dreamed about the future, dreamed about boys. He watched Sora and Kairi argue over the t-shirts and jumpers, tossing aside for Riku the ones they deemed boring. Occasionally Larxene tossed in a comment or question in between answering emails on her phone. This was the future they had been imagining. Not that they could leave this house any more than the Institute.  
  
"I should probably scram," Larxene said finally once Sora and Kairi had dispatched themselves to the living room to change into their chosen outfits. "You'd think I'd be able to hire one fucking person competent enough to run the dealership without me, but I guess then I'd be the one out of a job. When's Vexen due home?"  
  
"God knows. He's always late."  
  
"He working this weekend?"  
  
"Sunday only, I think. After that one of us is going to have to-" a loud thump from upstairs interrupted Marluxia, followed by a strangled scream. "Oh, shit." He took the stairs two at a time, Larxene at his heels. He flinched at an almost-animal shaped form writhing on the landing but his foot passed right through it. More pairs of eyes fixed on him in the guest room, claws lashing out of the swarming mass of limbs and mouths as he hurried to the screaming boy on the floor.  
  
_It's not real. It's not real. It's not real._  
  
"Hey. Hey, it's okay." Vanitas recoiled at his touch, tried to stand, let out a sob as his legs buckled under him. "You're safe. I'm not going to hurt you. It's okay." Marluxia tried to keep his voice as level as possible. If Vanitas understood him, he didn't respond, just letting out more cries whenever Marluxia reached towards him. The creatures were swarming thick and menacing, making Marluxia's skin crawl when they brushed against him. "It's okay. Don't be scared. You're safe here." He kept repeating the words like a mantra. As Vanitas attempted to get up again with the bed as support he managed to wrap his arms around the boy's waist and hoist him back onto the bed, taking an elbow to the face in the process. He had not fully appreciated just how ear-splitting a child's screech was capable of being until now.  
  
"Did Vexen leave any sedatives or anything?" Larxene was rummaging through the box on the bedside table, swatting away illusions.  
  
"Uh, yeah, halodiol or something. There should be a- ouch!" The creatures were growing larger, melding together into monsters which loomed menacingly, their faces just reminiscent of human enough to be uncanny. They darted across Marluxia's vision, making him flinch. Even knowing they were a trick of the mind, his heart was machine gun fire.  
  
"Haloperidol?"  
  
"-Yeah." Marluxia held the struggling boy down as Larxene uncapped the syringe. "In this valve here-" but before Larxene could administer the drug Vanitas suddenly slackened, the hallucinations twisting and surging with what Marluxia could only think of as panic. He jolted once or twice as if fighting the attack, his breaths coming out in a shallow, rapid flutter.  
  
"Is he conscious?"  
  
"I don't know. I don't know what to do." Marluxia fought down his own rising panic. And anger. How could Vexen have abandoned him with these children when the closest thing he had to medical training was half-remembering things Vexen talked about from time to time? They couldn't afford for Marluxia to make mistakes. And Vexen had fucked off and- and trusted him. Vexen had trusted him to do the right thing. And wrestling with a hysterical seven year old was almost certainly not it.  
  
"He's like me." Sora had appeared in the doorway. He was wearing a bright red sweater with what was probably a dinosaur on it, looking a lot more like just a regular kid. He climbed onto the bed and began to stroke Vanitas' hair, the monsters receding almost immediately at his touch. "It's okay. It passes. Just relax." His eyebrows wrinkled in concentration as he brought Vanitas' emotions under control. Finally once the room was once again occupied only by people he said, "He's really scared and confused. He doesn't know what's happening. He doesn't feel safe."  
  
Marluxia pulled his hands through his hair, hating to feel so useless. Vanitas seemed to be drifting in and out of sleep. He busied himself with reattaching the IV to his catheter. "We can't just rely on you to keep him calm."  
  
"I can do it."  
  
"No. I know a thing or two about overexerting your powers. You could really hurt yourself."  
  
"What's the alternative?" Larxene was pacing. She held up the tranquiliser. "Keep him sedated?"  
  
"Vexen will know what to do."  
  
Larxene clicked her tongue. She glanced out at the miserable sleet still coming down outside. Finally she sighed and said, "If Vexen knew what to do he would have told you to do it. So he might be able to get this kid's medical records out of the Institute. Then what? Suddenly put you on prescription for enough meds for four kids with totally unrelated powers?"  
  
"Can we not have this conversation in front of Sora."  
  
"They're not stupid, Marluxia. These kids know more about what's going on than you do."  
  
As if on cue, Kairi and Riku poked their heads around the door. Kairi had decked herself out in a plaid dress and a pair of leggings with unicorns on them, while Riku was wearing a pink cardigan Marluxia would have bought a size up if he'd anticipated the boy being interested in it. Their gaudy clothes were an uncomfortable juxtaposition against their serious expressions.  
  
"Can we come in?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
Once they were settled on the bed, Riku launched into a speech Marluxia assumed had been rehearsed earlier. "Just because we're children doesn't mean we don't deserve to know what's going to happen to us. We need to know we can trust you. We're stronger than any of you. And you need us. Without Sora's powers there's no way you can take care of Freaky Sora." To prove his point he gestured at Vanitas, who had finally lost his battle with sleep and was breathing steadily.  
  
"We're not going to send you back," Marluxia promised. He looked at the children: Kairi's fierce expression; Riku determined to disguise his nerves with clenched fists and a set jaw; Sora with tired rings under his eyes. He swallowed. "The truth is I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if in the future it might be possible to… to have enough evidence to take on the Institute so you can…" he selected his next words carefully: "Not have to worry about them any more. But right now we're just going to have to take things one day at a time."  
  
"The Institute thinks we're dead."    
  
"But none of you have legal identities." Met with three perplexed faces, Marluxia elaborated as best he could: "We can't just show up to a hospital or a school or anything without papers saying who you are and that we're the ones taking care of you. If we tried they'd start digging, and the HSRI would find you."  
  
"And make us go back?"  
  
Marluxia realised he was scratching at his cuticles. The clock was ticking agonisingly slowly: still hours until Vexen would get home. "I don't know," he admitted. "They might get in enough trouble to shut down the research program, or... But any program capable of-" he faltered, and ultimately was only able to gesture helplessly at Vanitas. "We'll do whatever we can to keep you safe. I just don't know what that's going to be yet."  
  
Not even Sora looked convinced, but there was nothing else Marluxia could say except, "we'll talk about it when Vexen gets home." Vanitas was beginning to stir. Sora started to stroke his hair again, murmuring gentle words like he was used to comforting others. Marluxia wondered how many other children he had coaxed down from terror like this. Vanitas levered himself onto his hands and knees, slowly, as if only just remembering how to move. He licked his lips, reached up to rub his eyes with his fist, squinted at the catheter taped to his arm in slow, groggy confusion.  
  
"I'll grab some water." Even Larxene spoke in hushed tones.  
  
"Get a banana too."  
  
"Hey," Sora said, putting his hand gently on Vanitas'. "Remember me? I'm Sora. What's your name?" But the boy only looked at him for a moment before returning to his own hands as if fixated. "We've been calling you Freaky Sora, because you look like me, except freaky. The grown ups think that's rude though. They're calling you Vanitas. But that's like calling Riku Drug Trial Thirteen. That's Riku." If Vanitas was listening, he didn't responed to Sora pointing at his friend. "You still don't wanna talk, huh?"  
  
"Not everyone likes talking as much as you, Sora."  
  
Vanitas let out a sound that might have been "hey". Or might have been "help". He tried to sit up, lost his balance, yelped at Riku's hands suddenly on his body as the older boy caught his fall. After that he groaned as the children helped him into a sitting position, but nothing else that sounded like words came out of his mouth. Kairi rearranged pillows for him to lean on while Riku untangled his legs from the sheets. Sora's tongue was sticking out in concentration. They worked as a team like they had done this before.  
  
Larxene returned from the kitchen with a tray, using her hip to ease the door open.  
  
"Snacks for all. Figured you could use a coffee, Loosh. How's the kiddo?"  
  
"He's really scared," said Sora. "But..." His eyebrows furrowed. "He's trying to hide it."  
  
"You still controlling him?"  
  
"It's not _control_ , Riku." Riku stuck his tongue out at Sora. Marluxia noticed Kairi rolling her eyes. "I'm still keeping him calm. But not so much. He's still fighting the sleep attack I think."  
  
"Do you think he'll be able to have something to eat or drink?" asked Marluxia. He took a tumbler from Larxene's tray. "Vanitas? Are you thirsty?" The boy made no indication he understood, but when presented with the cup he took it in both hands and gulped the water down. The banana he approached more suspiciously, but once Riku took a slice and ate it in an exaggerated pantomime he stuffed it into his face like he hadn't eaten for days. He also wolfed down a chocolate roll, but Marluxia took the tray away before he could grab anything else. The last thing he needed was Vanitas getting sick from eating too much too fast.  
  
"Is he deaf?" Larxene asked. She snapped her fingers close to Vanitas' ear, making him jolt. "Huh. Guess not."  
  
"Please try not to spook him. Sora needs a break." Marluxia found himself toying with his hair, a habit he thought he'd broken years ago. "Hopefully Vexen will be able to give us more information when he gets home."  
  
Larxene flopped into the armchair. A weird little homonculus emerged from the shadows, fixating her with an unblinking stare. "Are we all seeing the same things?" she asked, passing her foot through the creature. "You can see that freaky little man, right?"  
  
"I guess he's just broadcasting his feelings," said Riku, leaning over to look at the thing. He scrunched up his nose in distaste, as if the hallucination was olfactory as well as visual. "Sora used to be the same before he learned how to control his powers. Remember when he used to get upset he would make everybody around him cry?"  
  
"He did that like three months ago," said Kairi, laughing at Sora's protests. "Remember it was when we were on that trial and the drug made his narcolepsy super bad. We were playing Jenga-"  
  
"-I was mad because Riku said I lost! It wasn't my fault I collapsed on the tower! That doesn't count!"  
  
"You're just jealous you can't beat me at Jenga."  
  
Sora crossed his arms, pouting. They kept chatting about this and that while they munched on chocolate rolls. Between them Vanitas was still, whether because the earlier panic had passed or because Sora was regulating his emotions he didn't know.  
  
"Would you guys mind staying up here?" Marluxia asked. "I think Vanitas could use the company. I can bring up a poster board and the Lego if you want."  
  
The kids conferred through glances. "Sure," Riku agreed after a moment. "I think he just peed though."  
  
"I'll bring up the Lego after I change the sheets, then."


	6. Quercus robur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In which Riku is a walking existential crisis)

Riku lays still in the dim light, counting the struts of the bunk above him to distract from the pain in his stomach. It feels as if a hand reached through his skin and is determined to squeeze his insides until they burst up his throat. The nausea has been getting worse for days, ruining his appetite and putting him in a foul mood. He dutifully reports it to the nurses every morning and afternoon, but they keep refusing to deem it serious enough to take him off the trial. The sound of the other boys shifting in their sleep makes him restless. He reaches up and pushes against one of the struts with his toes, making the metal bend and creak. He's warped most of the struts out of place by now, which was why nobody sleeps in the bunk above Riku.   
  
Riku's never been popular with the other kids - probably more because of his sour disposition than anything else - but lately they've been treating him with a kind of pitying tenderness that's even worse than being ignored. At thirteen he's currently the oldest child in the program, which means he's getting close to being Transferred. The thought of being separated from Sora and Kairi, maybe never seeing them again, makes Riku's gut clench worse than the drugs. At first they'll beg the nurses and attendants and doctors to send messages to Riku, wherever he is, Sora probably making everyone else cry. He'll probably spend a couple days in isolation until he can control himself again. But then… life will go on without Riku. They'll forget about him. Sora and Kairi are only a couple of months apart. They'll probably get Transferred together. The adults always say how cute a couple they make as if it's as easy to cut Riku out of existence as slicing through paper for a collage. He doesn't know what scares him more: being alone without his best friends in some Other Place, or being dead.   
  
The argument goes, in hushed whispers when the adults have their backs turned, like this: there aren't any adults with strong powers like ours. If your powers are gonna collapse they collapse when you're a kid. That means that if they don't, Something Else Happens To You. Like the kids who lose control too many times and get moved to a "secure facility". Rumours are a kind of currency. Rare sightings of other children from other programs. Stories of kids who escaped, kids who died, kids who went in for brain surgery and came out acting like robots. Riku doesn't put much weight in the stories, at least not during the day.   
  
Finally he hears the pattern of knocks on the door that signals Kairi's arrival. He shakes Sora awake. They creep to the door and slip into the dimly lit corridor, Kairi bolting the door behind them.  
  
"Took you long enough," huffs Riku as they dip into a stairwell. "Thought I was gonna fall asleep."   
  
"Okay, you can climb out through the ceiling then. Olette phased into the wall and had to go to the ICU."  
  
"Is she gonna make it?"  
  
"Oh yeah, I think so. They just gotta get all the bits of plaster out of her back."  
  
A storey up, Sora wiggles their stolen key card out from behind the no-smoking sign and slots it into the reader by the door. Riku always holds his breath until the green light comes on, expecting that this will be the time security finally deactivates it. They slip into another corridor, this one lit only by green fire escape signs. Their destination is an office, the one for junior researchers that never gets locked. They crowd by the window, staring out at the car park, the security fence, and the silhouettes of trees beyond. Riku wonders how anyone can work with a view like that, when the clouds stretch ever changing across the sky and if they're lucky a fox might sneak into the car park and rummage around in the bins for food.   
  
Kairi switches on a computer, but all she gets to is the login screen. Every time they come up here they check the computers, just in case someone didn't log out. They don't even know what they'd do with a computer, but the thought of breaking in and learning things they're not supposed to know is exhilarating.    
  
"So," says Sora, pulling out Riku's diary from its hiding place behind the radiator. "I took these plasters from the nurse's office. But I'm still working on getting wipes. I think I gotta go to the stores for that. They only ever have a couple boxes out at once."  
  
"I found a way into the kitchen," reports Riku. "The door from the canteen only has a magnetic lock. I'm strong enough to break through."  
  
"That's good." Kairi takes the diary and starts to write. Sora's handwriting is neater, but she's faster at writing than either of the boys. "You should start taking things that won't go bad now. We don't wanna attract suspicion. I thought about bags and I think the best shot we've got is those laundry bags they use. But I don't know how to get hold of one."  
  
Riku taps his chin thoughtfully. Something flitters under the car park floodlights, either a bat or an owl. "One of us needs to get onto laundry duty."  
  
"But how? Our chore schedules are set until Christmas already."   
  
"Hayner's on laundry. We could ask him."  
  
"No way. We can't trust anyone else. They'd want to come too."  
  
"We won't wanna leave until it gets warmer outside," says Sora. "We don't have any outdoor clothes and it'll be easier if Kairi doesn't have to keep us warm."

Kairi nods in agreement. "Yeah, we don't want to have to use our powers unless it's an emergency. We need to save our energy."  
  
"You say that now," says Riku airily, leaning back against the window, "But I bet you'll feel differently when you're bored of carrying all your stuff."  
  
"No way, Riku! We'll pull our weight too!"   
  
All they've talked about over the last couple months is the Escape Plan. Riku gazes out at the vast open sky, the faint mirage of the moon behind a layer of clouds. His stomach groans uncomfortably. It's selfish to want to leave as soon as possible. They have to be careful. The outside world isn't like the familiar comfort of the corridors here. If they're caught stockpiling there won't be a second chance. But that fear simmers deep inside him, that spring will be too late for him. And that Kairi and Sora would prefer it that way.


End file.
